Chương 152: Book 3 Chapter 30 - Very Serious Questions

"Is this your handiwork?" Elsa asked him, holding up the bracelet. Victor didn't see any reason to lie, so he nodded. The sight of the bracelet did alarm him, though. He couldn't imagine Shian giving it up willingly.

"And the wards on her estate here in Portish, that was you as well, wasn't it?" He nodded once again.

"Your work is very impressive," she said, turning the bracelet over in her hand.

"I must say, though, you really outdid yourself with this last one." A murky brown sphere appeared in her other hand, and she held it up for Victor to see.

"I assume this was you as well?" Victor's jaw hit the floor. His eyes widened as he looked at the artifact in front of him. He reached out for it instinctively, without realizing it.

"What the…" Elsa pulled the sphere further back, out of his reach.

"Oh, no? If not you, then I wonder who else she's in league with." She tapped the sphere on her desk like it was a mundane paper weight. Victor winced with each tap. Did she realize what she was holding? Victor had never seen anything like it. His domain sense explored the artifact in detail, and it was the first time since reaching tier 6 that he'd been amazed by a work of enchanting. The runes were hidden on the inside of the glass.

Their complexity was apparent to his domain sense, each line was inscribed with perfection. Whoever had created it clearly had a personal domain, maybe an elevated one. The most unique part was that the enchantments were infused with concepts that Victor had never seen before. The purpose and intent of the artifact seemed…. time-based? Victor wasn't sure, but it kind of felt that way. He would need time studying it to truly gather its purpose.

A memory surfaced of Shian saying that she'd seen better artificing work than his own once upon a time. Looking at the sphere, he was inclined to agree with her. That being said, if he had some time to study it, he was sure he could reproduce a similar artifact himself. Mages were always experimenting with time-based magic, but no one had ever actually achieved it yet, to Victor's knowledge. The sphere that Elsa was so carelessly tapping against her desk was likely the first working example in existence.

"You got that from Shian?" he asked, the awe in his voice apparent. Elsa glanced at it, then nodded.

"She threw it at me while we were having a conversation. It was meant as some sort of attack, so I responded by clamping down on her with my aura. She is now in custody in a cell in the basement." She held the sphere up.

"Do you have any idea what it is?" Victor lied and shook his head. If Elsa didn't know, it was probably best it remained that way.

"That one isn't my creation. It is extraordinary, though." Elsa nodded in agreement.

"Out of respect for your family, Victor, I will allow you a short visit with Miss Yountal, but I'm afraid that is where my generosity ends. I have charges to file with Count Dremond for her attack on my person, and she will remain in my custody until then." Victor simply nodded. He was sure that Shian's version of events would be very different from what Elsa had just claimed, but he didn't argue the point.

A short conversation with Shian would clear a lot of things up, and was pretty much all he'd been hoping for up to this point anyways. Elsa led him to the basement, where she removed some wards on a cell and opened the door. Victor could see Shian through the bars before the door even opened. She was laying on a small, dirty pile of hay, fast asleep. Victor stepped inside. Elsa closed the gate behind him.

"I'm afraid I must leave the cell door locked, but alert the guards when you are ready to leave, and they will open the door for you. I have other matters to attend to at present." That was fine, he'd prefer if she weren't here for this conversation anyways. She walked off, leaving Victor alone with Shian. A few guards in the hallway edged closer, trying to listen in on whatever conversation they might have. Victor didn't need a spell to cancel out the sound.

His domain allowed him to control which sounds left the cell and which ones didn't. He was sure that Elsa was serious about the short time limit, so he gently roused Shian with a soft hand on her shoulder. She breathed in deeply and opened her eyes, looking around. She blinked a few times as she looked up at him.

"Victor?" She suddenly sat upright, as sleep fled from her eyes. She gently poked herself in the head a few times.

"Good, my headache's gone." She looked up at him from her seated position.

"Are you here to rescue me?" The question seemed genuine. For all intents and purposes, Shian Yountal looked like a scared child, stuck in a hole in the side of the road, unable to get herself out of it, asking him for help.

"What happened?" he asked, curious to hear her version of events. She glanced through the bars at the guards outside, but he dispelled her worries.

"They can't hear us, I made sure of that." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. A look of relief came over her face.

"Thank you so much for coming, Victor, you're a true friend. Did Zoey and Dustin fill you in on why I came here?" Victor nodded.

"Well," she continued, "when I arrived, Elsa met with me. She attacked me unexpectedly with her aura, and completely overwhelmed me." Her voice took on a hint of fear and her gaze dropped to the floor.

"It was scary, Victor. I was helpless against it. I've never felt anything like that before." Victor was confused. She was essentially admitting to not even being tier 4, without an aura of her own to combat the pressure from Elsa's aura. Victor was no fool, he had seen her fight Kane in Easton. She was no tier 3. That being said, he glanced down at her left hand, where her two smallest fingers were still missing. He had assumed she was keeping it that way on purpose, but now he was second guessing that idea.

If she wasn't tier 5, then her body hadn't yet developed the ability to regrow limbs.

"Lady Yountal," he began, looking at her earnestly.

"I'll admit I'm a bit confused. I've always thought we had an unspoken agreement not to discuss it, so I never brought it up, but your current situation makes me reconsider. Forgive me if I'm overstepping here, but… aren't you a tier 7 mage?" She looked at him in confusion, then shook her head.

"What ever gave you that idea?" He stared at her.

"I've seen you do things that even I can't do, at tier 6." Her gaze dropped.

"Ah, you noticed some of that, huh?" She was silent for a moment before continuing, as if considering how honest to be with him. Finally, she nodded to herself and lifted her eyes back up to meet his.

"I'm not tier 7, Victor. I'm tier 3." He shook his head.

"That's impossible. I've seen you do things that no tier 3 can do." She shrugged.

"I'm different from most tier 3s. I'm not actually even a mage, I can't do any magic." He gave her a flat stare.

"I've seen you go invisible." She grimaced.

"Okay, fair point. I can do some magic, ironically, but not normal magic. I have abilities, but they aren't the same as what a mage can do. I can't cast any mana-based spells, for example." The things she was claiming were complete nonsense, impossibilities that Victor's brain tried to refuse outright. And yet, this was similar to one of his original theories about her. That she had maybe discovered some new types of magic that no one else knew yet.

If she couldn't control mana, but was able to go invisible, that would fit that narrative. Her invisibility was extraordinary, too. He had never seen her use it since his tier 6 advancement, and he was curious if he could detect her presence now, with his domain sense. At tier 5 though, she had disappeared completely from his ability to sense her, as if she no longer existed.

"Tier 3?" he repeated. She nodded.

"I was there when you fought Kane, you know." She looked at him in surprise.

"Oh really?" More of his beliefs crumbled to the ground. He had assumed she'd known all about his being there. She had even complimented him on his work on the arena's enchantments, hadn't she? Or had he been reading too much into her responses, forming them to fit the narrative he already believed about her? He nodded.

"I shored up the arena's enchantments to make sure the crowd stayed safe from Kane's nastier spells. You… didn't notice?" She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Victor, I didn't even know you were there. That was very thoughtful of you though, to help keep the crowd safe like that." Hmm. He could deal with his disappointment later. Right now, he needed to get a firm grasp on the current situation. His voice softened.

"I've never known you to lie to me, Shian, but if you're really telling me the truth right now, I have some very serious questions for you." She nodded resolutely.

"Get me out of this cell, and I'll answer whatever questions you want." He raised an eyebrow.

"Including where you got that spherical artifact that Lady Undril was so ignorantly abusing up in her office?" Kiara's mouth opened, then closed again.

"Mmm. I'll tell you everything that I can, Victor. There are some things that I'm simply not allowed to say. Dustin likes to believe that it's because of a soul oath I've made, and I admit that it's because of something very similar to that, but it's slightly different. There are simply some things that I am unable to speak of." Victor nodded. That was enough of a promise for him. They could explore the limits of what that meant later. For now, he had work to do.

Similar to when he'd come here, he knew that if things really went south, he could simply teleport away and flee. That gave him confidence to face Elsa one more time and demand Shian's release. Surely they could come to some sort of agreement.

"I'll speak with Lady Undril again," he said to Shian.

"I'll try to secure your release, but I can't say for certain that it will work. Whatever the outcome though, know that I will try." She smiled at him.

"I know you will, Victor. Thank you." Victor released the hold his domain had on the cell, allowing sound to escape once more. He called to the guards, and they opened the gate for him, keeping a wary eye on both him and Shian the entire time. The guard shut the cell door behind him, and re-activated the protective enchantments on it.

"I'll escort you back to the front door," the guard said, leading the way.

"No," Victor said authoritatively.

"Take me back upstairs to Lady Undril's office. I need to speak with her again." The guard looked like he might object, but Victor gently pressed down on the man with his aura, and he fell silent at once, leading the way upstairs to Elsa's office. Elsa was waiting inside, almost as if she'd expected him to return here. To her side sat a tier 4, another clan member. Victor assumed he was here as backup. So far he hadn't revealed his true strength, and Elsa likely assumed he was at the peak of tier 5, like her.

Being from House Stansen, she would assume he was a talented fighter, which would make any conflict between the two of them a toss-up. Clearly, she felt more comfortable with this tier 4 by her side. Remembering his experience at the front door, where a show of strength worked wonders, and seeing Elsa employ a similar tactic now by calling in this tier 4, Victor decided it was time to stop hiding his true power.

He let go of the mask he'd been holding on his level, and the eyes of both Elsa and her tier 4 shot open in shock at the reveal. Victor shut the door with his will alone, not using any mana, and his domain enabled the action. Elsa had shown off her mana control earlier, and now he would show off his domain. He gently vibrated everything within his domain. The room, the walls, the very air around him shook from his effort. It was subtle, but noticeable, like a small tremor of an earthquake.

The aura of both Elsa and the tier 4 flared to life in response, and Victor realized that he'd overdone it. He wasn't very good at the social nuances of politicking, and had overstepped, turning what he thought was a good idea into what was clearly a bad one. They thought he was attacking them, and before he could try to explain, they both launched attacks of their own in response.